


Close Enough

by orphan_account



Category: Anne of Green Gables - Montgomery
Genre: Femslash, Ficlet, Het, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-02
Updated: 2009-06-02
Packaged: 2017-10-03 15:10:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katherine comes to visit Anne in Ingleside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Close Enough

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Kayryn.

'So you did marry your Gilbert after all,' said Katherine after Gil had gone in carrying the sleeping Jem after a hurried introduction on the porch.

'Of course,' said Anne, laughing. 'I told you so in a dozen letters, didn't I?' She picked up Katherine's suitcase and, waving away objections, carried it inside the door.

'These days I like to see a thing before I believe it. You know the most respected European travel books still say there are people in the South-American jungles born red as berries? They're red all right, but the colour is painted on to keep the mosquitoes off. Sensible thing, too, those things could suck a grown man dry in one night. You should have seen me, Anne – red as a berry myself, wherever I showed under the wrappings.'

'You weren't!'

'I was. And if your husband wasn't just inside I'd tell you more – but I fear he won't think me quite civilised.'

'I yearn to hear it,' Anne sighed with a glittering look in her eyes, and Katherine believed her.

'Tonight, then? We could share a bed – for old times sake – and have a good natter under the sheets.'

Anne's face flushed as red as any South-American painted native's. Katherine felt a tug at the corner of her mouth, but suppressed it lest she tease too much. Anne ignore the question and said instead, 'We have the guest room set out for you. Would you like to go up?'

'In a moment,' said Katherine. 'Let me look at you first.' She took Anne's hands and spread her arms. Anne laughed again, which more than anything convinced Katherine her first impression had been correct. 'You look happy,' she said. 'But not entirely – no – not in the same way you used to be.'

A shadow passed Anne's expressive eyes. 'I wrote to you about that, too.'

'Yes.' Even now, even with Anne, Katherine was not given to displays of affection. Her arms twitched to hold her white-clad form, to feel that softness against her again, but she folded them instead.

'And you,' Anne said, smiling again. 'You look more beautiful than ever.'

It was Katherine's turn to laugh. 'I'm older every year, Anne – don't lie! The Egyptian sun doesn't do a complexion any favours.'

'Nonsense. Your skin looks like the sun.' She leaned in and closed her eyes, her pink lips lightly parted. 'You smell like the sun. It's...' she blinked as she pulled away, 'intoxicating.'

There was a moment of awkwardness between them. Anne soon broke away and began to fuss with Katherine's coat and luggage. Katherine, on the other hand, was now sure she had read her correctly, and so began to relax for the first time since she got off the train at the small Glen St Mary station. She walked into the lovely house with its solid, Canadian normality and looked around the crocheted doilies and flower vases and pale merry paneling. She felt she could rest here for a while. She could leave Anne in Gilbert's bed and know that particular bit of magic had moved on away from her and found a place elsewhere. As she came into the scene in the living room, the man Gilbert with his wriggling son on his knee, the fire burning merrily, and Anne's happiness infusing every corner, she was sure of it. Anne had a life here, and Katherine had a life anywhere she chose, with whoever delighted her, which was many more people than it used to be. She was content.

Almost.

You don't easily forget the woman who set you free.

She stayed for a week, meeting in the course of those days a number of Anne's friends who, save for a few exceptions, almost uniformly disapproved of her and just as uniformly made her laugh, though Anne thought it scandalous she should do so. She got to know Jem and left him, she later thought, with a few too many ideas about foreign places in his youthful, hungry mind; little Walter, on the other hand, needed no encouragement for imagination. She admired the burbling twins, had half a dozen tea parties, two local ladies' meetings, and six too many nights clutching an empty pillow beside her in bed, smelling Anne's touch in the sheets, and drowning the desire and the memories it arose in a few moments of self-pleasure, mouth open and panting against the white fresh fabric.

At the end of that week she stood at the station clutching her suitcase and gazing at Anne, who had Jem by the hand, her eyes full of unsaid apologies and assurances. Katherine smiled, touched her cheek, and kissed her goodbye.

Anne caught her hand as she turned to step on the train. 'Next time,' Anne whispered, her cheeks flushed, and Katherine reeled as she recognized the desire in her eyes. 'Maybe? I mean – he's out often...' Anne's eyelids fluttered closed, and she buried her face in her hands. Katherine recognised shame when she saw it, and took pity.

'No, my love,' said Katherine. 'I won't be coming again. That's best, isn't it?'

She didn't stay to hear Anne protest or agree, but got quickly on the train, finding a seat away from the station side. She plastered her eyes firmly on the window frame, her knuckles white on the seat arm, until the train jerked, shuddered, and rolled out of the station, it's steady chunk-chunk taking her back into the world.


End file.
